


down beneath

by pyrrhlc



Series: archivist!sasha (love on a smaller stage) [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Archivist Sasha James, Gen, M/M, Not-Jon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23516044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrrhlc/pseuds/pyrrhlc
Summary: “I just want to know where Jon is,” Martin said quietly, even as he slid off his rucksack and took out the axe. Despite the wobble in his voice his expression was scarily calm, determined even, like she’d seen before just outside the Institute. “Even if he is – if it left his body, I’m going to make it tell me. I have to find him.”Sometimes taking action has its own advantages, sometimes not.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: archivist!sasha (love on a smaller stage) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1692085
Comments: 25
Kudos: 259





	down beneath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roserayrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roserayrose/gifts).



> ty roserayrose for a wonderful prompt. i owe you my life.

She started voicing her objections about a block away from the Institute, which seemed reasonable enough. It was mid-afternoon but the sun was already setting; if things had gone to plan – if she could just stop acting on instinct – she would’ve been there by now. Hunting ghosts, and other things she mostly understood. Not this.

“Martin, you cannot be serious.”

“I – I think I am, actually. But you don’t have to do it. You don’t really, well, _know_ any of us, and I know Jon wasn’t particularly nice to you when he took your statement—”

Melanie just looked at him. “He’s dead, Martin.”

If no one else was going to say it, she was … Martin inhaled sharply, turning away from her.

“You don’t know that,” he said quietly, “He might still be alive. And – and even if he’s not, we have to kill it.”

Melanie raised an eyebrow. “With respect, you don’t look like you’ve fought so much as a playground bully. How do you plan on killing something that’s not even human?”

Martin looked resolutely away from her, swallowing. “I bought an axe.”

“What?”

“I bought … an axe,” he repeated carefully. “To – to smash the table, and, you know, if we need to – smash _it_.”

“Where the hell did you get an axe?”

“You’d be surprised,” he said darkly, still holding very tightly to the strap of his rucksack as they rounded the corner and came face-to-face with the Institute. Amazing how such an ordinary building could fill her with such extraordinary amounts of fear, even knowing it so little. The windows looked like dozens of narrowed eyes. “Are you ready?”

Melanie spluttered. “I don’t – I’m not sure I even agreed to this in the first place. No, I’m not ready.” She gave him another look, this one rather more piercing. “Why haven’t you asked the others to help you? Why me?”

“Because – because they don’t _believe_ me, first of all, and you—you know that thing isn’t Jon. You’re the only other person who remembers him, and I don’t know why there’s two of us because in the statements Sasha was looking at there usually aren’t that many who remember, but—”

“No, no. Stop a second.” She held up her hands. “Sasha’s been looking at _statements_?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, all right,” he started, looking like he was resisting the temptation to stamp his foot. “She has, but she still won’t act – she told us all to go home early today because we need a _break_ for God’s sake, she doesn’t know! She doesn’t – look at him and … and …” Melanie watched him silently as he struggled for the words, looking even more helpless than when he’d first contacted her about the supplementary statement she’d recorded with Sasha.

She really, really had intended to leave for India before now, but one coffee shop meeting and a phone call had managed to convince herself that a flare up of the old sympathy wasn’t such a bad thing – at least not until Martin had asked to meet again with a much bigger request. It didn’t matter how sorry she felt for someone with a stupid crush – didn’t matter how many supernatural things were going on at the Magnus Institute, she was going to wriggle out of this one if she could.

“All right, listen,” she started, seeing that Martin wasn’t about to make any more headway on discussing his emotions towards the Institute, Jon-related or otherwise. “Maybe Sasha doesn’t entirely believe you, but that’s her job, isn’t it? She’s probably been researching to make sure you’re right—”

“I am right!” Martin said angrily. “He could be in there right now!”

“He isn’t, but all right, whatever keeps you happy. I’m just pointing out, maybe Sasha has a plan of her own. She’s not an idiot like your boyfriend, she probably has a much smarter plan than just going in and smashing up some furniture—”

Martin had gone suddenly very pink. “Jon wasn’t – he isn’t – she hasn’t got a plan! Surely, if she had a plan, she would’ve told me and Tim about it, but she just told us to go home—”

“Did she tell Jon to go home?”

“He’s _not_ Jon, he’s—” Martin began hotly, but stopped himself mid-sentence, eyebrows creasing into a frown. “No, he – he wasn’t there when she told us to go.”

“Well, there you are then,” she said, already turning to leave. “Leave it to Sasha if she’s got a plan.”

“Melanie, wait!”

He’d grabbed hold of her shoulder but let go again just as quickly as she turned, eyebrows still raised incredulously.

“Martin, she’s a very competent and attractive woman, she doesn’t need my help—”

“No, no, if you don’t want to help me that’s fine. I don’t care. But…” He glanced up at her before looking back down again, twisting his hands together anxiously. “I didn’t think about it, but she apologised again, about what happened, uh, recently. I’m worried she might have been saying goodbye.”

They stared at each other for what seemed like a long moment, then Martin turned and began running towards the Institute, his bulky, axe-filled rucksack bumping behind him. Melanie swore and began to chase after him down the street.

“Martin! For God’s sake, it’s not worth it! Don’t make feel bad about this, please, I’ve got a plane to catch—”

Martin stopped and turned to look at her. They were metres from the sliding glass doors of the Institute reception. “If he’s dead,” he said, not without a wobble in his voice, “I want to kill the thing that did it. And if Sasha’s going to do the same – well. I’m going to help her. I’m sorry I asked you. It was stupid of me to think you would want to help too.”

“No, wait—” she said, catching hold of his shoulder as he made towards the doors. Martin glanced over his shoulder at her with an expression that seemed far less angry that it should have been, and instead was everything sad. “I’m not saying this shit isn’t real. I’m saying I don’t want to risk my neck for something that’s probably unkillable. What if you die? How is that going to help anyone?”

Martin wouldn’t meet her eye. “Let go of me, Melanie.”

“No. No, to hell with you. I’m coming with you. But I want that axe,” she added fiercely, “because you don’t look like you could swing a baseball bat, and if something is going to try and kill us I’d really prefer we had a fighting chance.”

It wasn’t relief that crossed Martin’s face, not exactly; more a hard-faced kind of resignation, the sort of acceptance Melanie had been struggling with from the beginning. “Fine. Fine, let’s go. The table’s in Artefact Storage.”

*

Melanie waved a cheery hello to Rosie on their way past the desk – calling off-handedly that Martin was helping her with some more research – then kept walking along the corridor to the storage unit. There was no sign of Sasha.

“God, please stop doing that. It’s making me feel even worse.”

Martin glanced up at her, still twisting his fingers together as they turned a corner. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m worried. You can’t just walk in there, you know. I’ve only actually been inside a couple of times and you always have to ask for Sasha’s permission first.”

Melanie glanced along the corridor to the lone door at the end. “Well, looks like we’re in luck, because there’s no-one there.”

“What?” Martin asked. He ducked sideways to peer past her, frowned. “That can’t be right.”

She shrugged. “No time to look a gift horse in the mouth,” she said. “They might have been called off somewhere, you don’t know.”

Martin gave the surrounding doors another anxious glance, then nodded decisively, striding forwards and grasping the handle, tugging it open. The interior was very dark.

“Are you … planning to turn on the lights?”

Another glance down the hallway. Martin shook his head and slid the rucksack from his shoulder, pulling out two solid-looking torches. “If it’s still here …” he said, but there wasn’t any need to finish the statement. Melanie raised her eyebrows in silent agreement, took a torch.

“Fine. Maybe it’s talking with Sasha.”

This comment earned Melanie her own eyebrow raise. “If she believed me, she wouldn’t stop to talk to it. She would just kill it. She’s” – he inhaled sharply – “decisive.”

“Right. Well, on the assumption that both Sasha and the … not-Jon, whatever it is, are still both alive and well, should we maybe try to kill it while we have the chance?”

Martin gave her a look that seemed very out of place with his otherwise anxious exterior. “I know,” he said, the faintest edge creeping into his voice. “I’m just being careful. And I want … I want to find Jon, too.”

Melanie opened her mouth to protest this continued optimism, then stopped. Martin had frozen too. There were footsteps approaching from the turn at the end of the corridor.

“Quick!”

Melanie went first, Martin closing the door quietly behind them both and blocking out the last of the light. Two torches flickered on apprehensively, the beam of Martin’s shaking a considerable amount.

“Are you OK?”

“I think that was the thing,” he said quietly, and glancing at him in the glow of the torch Melanie could tell he was trying not to shudder. “I don’t understand why it hasn’t attacked anyone yet. If it wanted Sasha …”

“Probably because it’s enjoying not being seen,” she hissed back. “Now give me the axe and let’s find that table, this place is even creepier than the Archive.”

It had, she thought, a very strange smell of dust – dust and something else. The room was narrow and very long and she could see vague shapes suspended in piles on every shelf, some carefully labelled and some apparently abandoned. It seemed to go on forever.

“How big is this place?”

“I don’t know,” Martin said crossly, but the undercurrent of fear in his voice seemed to grow stronger with every word. “It has other rooms. This is just the main one, but I thought they’d keep some kind of ledger … oh.”

Melanie stepped around him to focus her torch on the cloth covered object in front of them, so large that it was almost blocking their way. She motioned silently for Martin’s rucksack.

“OK,” she said slowly. “Axe. Gimme. You can take off the sheet.”

“This was a stupid idea,” Martin said faintly. “It’s going to hear us.”

She was trying very hard not to roll her eyes at him again, but it was proving difficult. “Like you said, if it’s not after Sasha it probably knows we’re here. Come on, Martin. If it doesn’t kill it at least it will hurt. We can figure out what to do after—”

“I just want to know where Jon is,” Martin said quietly, even as he slid off his rucksack and took out the axe. Despite the wobble in his voice his expression was scarily calm, determined even, like she’d seen before just outside the Institute. “Even if he is – if it left his body, I’m going to make it tell me. I have to find him.”

“Martin, please ... ”

They were being very quiet but even so she couldn’t escape the notion that they were being watched. It was almost worse than when she’d given her statement to Sasha the second time, this feeling of being picked off, considered. She took the axe from Martin’s shaking hands.

“We haven’t got time for this,” she hissed quietly. “You wanted my help; you have it now. Let’s do what we came here to do, and _get rid of it_.”

Martin nodded, seemingly bracing himself to pull away the cloth sheet. “All the photos of him changed,” he said, just before he did. “In the office. And I know – I _knew_ him, what he looks like, but sometimes I struggle. Like something’s making me forget.”

Melanie didn’t have anything to say to this. She wasn’t good at comforting people, especially those with pointless one-sided crushes. “Probably the thing,” she said, lifting the axe to test its weight, her tone as light as possible. “Least you know he wasn’t blond.”

Martin let out a shaky sort of laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “True.”

He pulled off the sheet.

Melanie stared at the table for approximately half a second, the lines curiously mesmerising – then the true absurdity of the situation kicked in and she remembered why she was feeling so angry. It was bullshit, all this supernatural stuff. It shouldn’t have happened to her, and she certainly never should have come back, certainly not because a man she’d spoken to _once_ had asked her for help—

She swung the axe and smashed it into the table, giving out a half-conscious shout of delight when it exploded into pieces, the sound explosive in the dead-silence of the dark room. A small splinter had struck her across the face and she could feel her cheek bleeding, but suddenly she was barely conscious of it because there was … something …

She could hear laughter, somewhere, and it sounded remarkably like someone they’d meant to recognise but hadn’t.

“Shit,” she swore, “Shit, Martin, there’s nothing in here.”

“What?”

“There’s not – fuck, can you hear that?”

There was no way not to. Her eyes followed Martin’s to the closed door all the way at the other end of Storage, still closed tight, but there was a distinct rattling sound coming from the other side now and it didn’t sound like it was made by human hands. They were trapped. Something had gone terribly wrong.

The creaking sound from behind her was enough that she almost dropped the axe altogether, clinging to it by her fingertips as she turned to look at it. What she saw … didn’t entirely make sense.

“Is that a door?”

“It would seem so, wouldn’t it,” said a shadow from beside it, and Melanie felt Martin recoil behind her as it stepped into view, too tall and stretched like a bad copy of a photograph, or a familiar friend seen through a funhouse mirror. It had a face only some of the time.

“You,” it said in a sort of contemplative voice, “are not the Archivist. You don’t even work here, do you?” it added, tilting its head to look at Melanie, then looked at Martin again. “You. She mentioned you. I know exactly what you’re here for.”

It was something of a relief to see Martin as incredulous as she was – at least it proved this whole thing was real. The banging and scraping behind them was getting louder by the second.

“What do we do?”

“I don’t know,” Martin said, still with that faint horror in his voice. He stared across at the thing, then down at the table. “I still don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?” asked the shadow. “You have about twenty seconds by my count before they break in and attack you. I’m not going to mourn. I was … rather expecting someone else.”

Melanie glanced back at the door again, then wheeled back around to face the thing.

“You mean the, uh, the not-Jon? What about the table? Wasn’t it…”

“Binding it quite effectively? Yes, I would think so. Did you read the same statements as the Archivist, or are you just particularly stupid? Ten seconds,” it added lazily, flicking a long, terribly thin hand, and Melanie heard Martin breathe in sharply at the sight of the darkness on the other side of the now-open door. He looked at the shadow, demanding.

“Where does that go?”

“Oh, wherever you need it to, I suppose.” replied the thing. It sounded petulant, somehow. “I think – yes, I think I will toy with you for a little longer. It will be fun for the Stranger to compete. And, of course, you might find something to your liking in there…”

Martin flicked another terrified look towards the door, then back at Melanie. “I’m sorry,” he said. “D’you—”

“No time,” she grunted, and pushed him through, following on just as the Storage door opened and something almost as thin and twisted as the shadow stepped through it, blond hair lank and matted where it lay flat across a dented skull, still bleeding from where something sharp had hit it across the face … It called out into the darkness just as the door closed, voice reedy and detached and nothing like the sharp wit she remembered meeting, even briefly, in that tiny office. It was not pretending anymore. She, too, was done pretending that they might be able to kill it.

“ _Martin …”_ it rasped, “ _I know you’re in here … The Archivist is looking for you …”_

Whatever had been stopping it from killing them didn’t apply now, she realised. Not now they’d fucked up so tremendously. She pushed down a breath of fear and pulled the door shut behind her, the sound dropping off almost instantly to be replaced by the inconsistent drip of water. She glanced up.

“We’re in the tunnels,” said Martin’s distant, distorted voice – all this despite the fact she was standing right next to him. “How did – that doesn’t make sense, does it?”

“Does any of it?” she asked, glancing from one dark wall to enough. She’d left her torch in Artefact Storage, and Martin’s alone seemed a pitiful yellow glow in all this black. She hefted the axe up a little higher, glanced around. “Must have been its idea of a joke.”

“It knew who Sasha was. D’you think it hurt her?”

Melanie made a non-committal sound. “I don’t know. That not-Jon thing seemed pretty beaten up. I think maybe she might have believed you after all.”

“Well, why isn’t she here then? Why isn’t she helping us? It’s bad enough being stuck down here once … It’s like a maze, the last time I was here I got stuck for hours.”

“Maybe we just … concentrate on going forwards? If it’s still after us, we’ve probably got a good start. And – Martin? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, though Melanie could see all the colour had drained from his face. “I just – something that thing said, about finding something to our liking …”

“I think we can assume he meant a way out.”

“No, I don’t think he did. God, come on. I need – ugh, I wish I had a map of this place. It feels like the walls move.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” she said under her breath, but followed Martin complacently enough as they made their way down a narrow set of stairs, then up one dark hallway and down another. It seemed like Martin was following something, some trail only he could see, but that seemed absurd – everything down here not lit up by the torch was in uniform darkness, one streak of void after the other. The feeling of being watched was so powerful now it felt like a weight was pressing down on her, shortening her breaths.

“Martin, we should hide,” she said, jogging to keep up with him as his pace increased. “It’s been ten minutes, that thing isn’t stupid, it knew we were in Artefact Storage …”

But Martin just shook his head, not even slowing his pace. “No, I know. But I think … God, I’m such an idiot. I’m sorry. Sasha must have figured out that the table was binding it but I didn’t _think._ I was just – oh. Oh no.”

Melanie could hear it too; directly ahead of them, a faint scratching noise like something heavy being dragged across the floor. She grabbed Martin and ducked quickly into an alcove, pressing them both into the way. The musty smell of the tunnels was suddenly acrid, thick and cloying in the back of her throat. She could hardly dare to breath.

“ _Martin, I’m hurt by this, I really thought we were friends … I never dreamed you’d be so good to me as to smash my table, not after spending so long like this, but good things do happen … come now, you’re not afraid of me, are you? I’m just the same as I ever was. We made tea together in the break room, you’ve always trusted me …”_

“Don’t,” Melanie said, barely moving her lips. Martin was straining against her with a force she hadn’t thought possible of someone of such small stature, but every instinct in her was screaming to stay still and hide. It seemed to know they were there, though; it kept coming closer, long arms dragging with every step. Melanie didn’t want to see but she knew she would, it was so close now, her heart was beating out of her chest …

“ _You’ve been so worried about everyone, haven’t you, Martin? Worried about Sasha, worried about me. Tim and Sasha don’t speak to each other much anymore, do they? How does that make you feel, Martin? We can talk about it. I know you like to talk._

“ _I can’t wait to wear you next. I’m going to go back up to the Institute and strangle your Archivist just for fun. She won’t know any better – it’ll be like you never existed. I can’t wait to make you hurt_.”

It sounded so calm, that voice; it didn’t matter that her blood was pounding a tattoo against her skull, Martin shaking worse than ever in her grip, because that voice was too calm to kill. It wouldn’t flinch even if they faced it with an army, she thought.

“ _It’s going to hurt, Martin_ ,” the not-Jon said again, and Melanie wondered for a moment if its arm was still bleeding, whether or not a wound like that could be fatal to something not even human. Maybe Sasha would turn up at the last moment and save them both … “ _It’s going to hurt so much,”_ it sing-songed, “ _It hurt Jon._ ”

“SHUT UP!” Martin yelped, finally twisting free of Melanie’s grip, and for a moment he was unrecognisable, so angry that his eyes blazed with it, even as he was crying, tears streaming silently past a hard and determined mouth.

There was a sickening snap of bones from somewhere along the corridor, like a neck growing longer just for the purpose of looking.

“ _There you are,”_ it sighed happily, “ _At last. You’re not the Archivist, but I suppose you’ll do.”_

She was getting sick of this – being driven into corners by things that weren’t real. Melanie clutched a little harder at the axe, stepped forwards just as something long and thin jutted into view; a jaw, then eyes, then something else. Nothing was where it should be.

“ _Found you.”_

Melanie slammed the axe into it with all the force she could muster. She didn’t stop. It was screaming something horrendous but it didn’t have what she had – a sudden, inexplicable blinding rage that left her hands and face numb, barely aware of the scream in her throat as it reached for her, only to have its hands lopped off at the wrist, horribly crawling skeletal things…

“Martin! Go!”

A low snarl from the not-Jon; Melanie snarled back and hit out again at what had once been something like a rib cage. She remembered what Martin had said, about Sasha’s decisiveness, smiled wider and hit out again, even as something hard smacked into the side of her face and knocked her off balance. She could feel blood trickling from her nose, the taste of it sharp on her tongue.

It didn’t matter. She’d already been attacked by one thing that shouldn’t exist, and they weren’t going to get the better of her again. She lunged forwards, throwing it flat against the ground as Martin ran past, kicking as hard as she could at the grasping fingers before fleeing in the same direction. It wouldn’t have her. She’d lost a lot of things already over the past few months; she wasn’t going to lose herself.

There was a strange shifting sound behind her, but she didn’t look back; she could see Martin’s pinprick of a torch in the distance, a single faint yellow light, and running towards it was the only important thing, the only thing that mattered. She gave an involuntary yelp of fear as she ran into him, shoulder against back, and for the first time since realised that her face was damp with something that wasn’t blood, but was still pretending to be. She was still holding the axe.

“Why did you stop? Martin, why the fuck did you—”

Martin shook his head wordlessly, raised his torch to the far end of the corridor. There was an empty doorway there where there hadn’t been one before, with steps leading up, apparently back to the Institute. At the bottom of the steps was a body.

“It’s not Sasha, is it?” Melanie asked, her throat unusually hoarse, like she’d spent the last few minutes screaming, which maybe she had. Martin gave the tiniest shake of his head, started walking forwards as if in a trance. There was arc of blood patterned across his own face too but he didn’t seem to have noticed.

“No,” he said hollowly, “It’s Jon.”

Melanie watched him carefully as Martin knelt down, but he wasn’t crying like he had been earlier; his face was perfectly impassive as it reached cautiously for Jon’s pulse, pulling him close, head pillowed in Martin’s lap. All the air seemed to have gone out of the hallway, but Melanie’s heart hadn’t slowed. She could feel every sluggish, frantic beat, the blood so loud in her ears she almost didn’t hear Martin say, so quietly as to be almost missed, “He’s still alive.”

He whispered it like he didn’t believe it himself, then immediately stood, picking Jon up from the floor like he weighed little more than Martin did – and maybe that wasn’t an unfair comparison, she thought, looking at him. It couldn’t have been a coincidence to find him here, after all this time. Perhaps, she thought with a jolt of dread, the not-Jon had been using him … Hadn’t it been ten months already since she made her first statement?

“Do you think this is the way out?” Martin asked. “Did you get that thing?”

Melanie glanced back behind them – then stopped. There were a dead end behind them, like the walls had curved to stop the not-Jon from coming after them, and maybe that was true, or maybe it wasn’t. She dared to hope it, just for a moment, then glanced back at Martin.

“I’m not sure,” she said, “I think so. I think it’s stuck.”

Martin let out a shaky breath, still holding Jon gently in his arms. “Good,” he said, already turning towards the stairs. “Good. I hope it stays that way.”

**Author's Note:**

> pls leave kudos / comments if you have time! makes my day.
> 
> sorry martin again for all the trauma i'm heaping on you, it's a fellow manc's privilege


End file.
